ETH closes deal to join Brenco
O Estado de S. Paulo
ETH Bioenergia, of the Odebrecht group, closed an exclusiveness agreement to join its operations to the ethanol producer's Brenco that is going through financial difficulties. Both companies have not disclosed how this merger will take place - according to the ETH CEO, José Carlos Grubisich, initially there will be an evaluation of the assets of Brenco, and only then there will be a definition on what kind of combination there will between the two companies. The merger will give rise to the greatest sugarcane ethanol producer of Brazil and of the world. Together, they will produce 3 billion liters of ethanol a year and 2,500 GW/hour a year of electric energy from biomass.
According to Grubisich, there is still no option defined for the agreement, nor is there a model to be adopted neither the participation each partner will have in the new company to be formed by the merger. The CEO of Brenco, Philippe Reichstul, affirmed, however, that the operation should keep all the current partners of both the companies. Reichstul affirmed the best definition of the operation would be a combination of assets, and not an absorption of Brenco by ETH. According to the officer, the two companies are complementary and have similar strategies since they concentrate their main business in the production of bioenergy, either ethanol or bioelectricity.
Both ETH and Brenco are relatively new companies in the sugar and alcohol sector, and they have adopted similar strategies to construct new plants (Greenfields) dedicated to the production of ethanol and cogeneration of electric energy from the sugarcane bagasse in productive centers. ETH, controlled by Odebrecht together with the Japanese trading Sojitz, which owns 33% of the shares, has five plants, three of which are Greenfield projects that will be in operation by the end of 2009. The Rio Claro Plant, in the State of Goiás, is already in operation since August and the Santa Luzia I Plant, in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul and the Conquista do Pontal Plant, in São Paulo, will turn on their boilers until the end of October. The three plants would be initial units of three major centers. They go into operation with a crushing capacity of 3 million tons of sugarcane each.